Editorial: Is an amendment needed to reform public pensions in Illinois?

A few months ago, we asked State Sen. Matt Murphy of Palatine whether the General Assembly would have the energy to take on public pension reform again if the Illinois Supreme Court struck down the 2013 law that was intended to control the state's runaway spending by cutting retirement benefits for state workers and teachers.

The work and compromise and arm-twisting to pass that bill had been so exhausting that we wondered whether the legislators could bring themselves to doing it all over again. Murphy's reply was based on simple logic: The stakes are too high, he said, for legislators to duck the issue. The growing size of the pension obligation is so large that Illinois simply cannot afford to do nothing.

Advocates of pension reform were hoping that if the high court struck down the law, it would do so in a way that would provide clear direction for what a revised pension reform plan might look like. They hoped for direction as to what parts of the law the court could accept and what parts it felt forced to reject.

When it struck down the law Friday, the court provided that direction all right. It was clear and it was sweeping: The state has no constitutional authority to alter pension promises period, in any way - no matter how ill-considered the promises may have been and no matter how much pressure those promises put on the state's finances and taxpayers. nd in case anyone wanted to doubt the court's resolve, it issued its ruling with a unanimous vote.

"I really do think we have to start from scratch," said State Sen. Linda Holmes of Aurora, and it's hard for us to disagree.

Meanwhile, the pension fund debts stand at more than $110 billion and growing exponentially.

"We are now going to be facing this problem for the next 50 years," warned state Rep. Elaine Nekritz, one of the architects of the 2013 law.

Gov. Bruce Rauner was not in office when the 2013 legislation passed, but he questioned its constitutionality. While campaigning for governor, he promoted an alternative that would acknowledge the state's obligations to promises already made but that would reduce retirement benefits offered for work yet to be performed.

One of his options would be a 401(k) plan that is similar to the retirement plans most private sector employers offer. But it is unclear if even the Rauner proposal would be upheld by the supreme court. There's a debate whether the reduced plans could only apply to new employees, whether the state would be forbidden from converting employees already hired even for that portion of work they do in the future. To respond to that, Rauner advocates a constitutional amendment that would clarify the state's power to refine its pension programs.

Whether an amendment like that has merit or is even realistic is too soon to say. But it's clear that as Murphy warned earlier, Illinois is to a point now where every option must be on the table. Some of those options, frankly, could end up being draconian.

The reality is, the financial crisis spawned by exorbitant pensions is too deep for it to be ignored.